Think about the educational opportunities in Ukraine. Write a paragraph about educational alternatives in Ukraine for people who have completed their basic education.

DO YOU MAKE MOST OF IT?

PSYCHOLOGICAL research shows we consistently underestimate our mental powers. If you think this does not apply to you, then here is a simple test to show you are wrong.

Write down the names of all the American states you can remember. Put the list away and then set yourself the same task a week later. Provided you have not been consulting an atlas, you will notice something rather surprising. The two lists will contain roughly the same number of states, but they will not be identical. Some names will have slipped away, but others will have replaced them. This suggests that somewhere in your mind you may well have a record of virtually every state. So it is not really your memory letting you down; just your ability to retrieve information from it.

We would remember a lot more if we had more confidence in our memories and knew how to use them properly. One useful tip is that things are more likely to be remembered if you are in exactly the same state and place as you were when you learned them.

So if you are a student who always revises on black coffee, perhaps it would be sensible to prime yourself with a cup before going into the exam. If possible, you should also try to learn information in the room where it is going to be tested.

When you learn is also important. Lots of people swear they can absorb new information more efficiently at some times of day than at others. Research shows this is not just imagination. There is a biological rhythm for learning, though it affects different people in different ways. For most of us, the best plan is to take in new information in the morning and then try to consolidate it into memory during the afternoon.

In old age, intellectual functioning is closely related to physical health. But here also seems to be a lot of truth in the old adage: If you do not want to lose it, use it.

Learning goes well when people feel challenged and badly when they feel threatened. Whenever a learning task becomes threatening, both adults and Children feel anxious. Anxiety interferes with the process of learning because it is distracting. In order to learn effectively you have to be attending closely to the task. An anxious person is likely to be worrying about what will happen if he fails, to the detriment of his attempts to succeed. His mind is full of thoughts such as “I’m sure I’m going to fail this test”, or “What are my parents going to say?” he will not do as well as he should.

But this does not apply to everyone, so it is essential to establish your own learning is an active process. You can do this by learning a set number of lines of poetry at different times of the day and seeing when most lines you have done this, try to organise your life so that the time set aside for learning coincides with the time when your memory is at its best.

Other people can provide you with information, but only you can learn it.

Avoid learning marathons — they do not make the best use of your mind. Take plenty of breaks, because they offer a double bonus: the time off gives your mind a chance to do some preliminary consolidation and it also gives a memory boost to the learning which occurs on either side of it.

Popular fears about the effects of ageing on intelligence are based on claims to the contrary, you cannot learn when you are asleep. “Sleep learning” (accomplished by having a tape recorder under the pillow, playing soothing but improving messages while you are recharging your tissues) is unfortunately a myth. Any learning that seems to have occurred in this situation will actually have been done after you woke up but were still drowsy.

It also has to be “chewed over” before it can be integrated into your body of knowledge. That is why just reading a book is no way to acquire information unless you happen to possess a photographic memory. Promoting the author’s words is not much better. You have to make your own notes because this obliges you to apply an extra stage of processing to the information before committing it to memory. Effective revision always involves reworking material, making notes on notes, and perhaps reordering information in the light of newly-observed connections.

As a general rule, the greater your misconception slow down mentally as information, the better its chances of reproducing it accurately and effectively when you need it.